


The Last Assistant

by MeridianGrimm



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eric takes baby Gerry and moves out of the Keay household, Fix-It, Gen, Michael makes a terrifying but crucial realization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-29 03:41:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21403606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeridianGrimm/pseuds/MeridianGrimm
Summary: Eric tells Michael Shelley how to quit the Archives.  It takes Michael two decades and some close calls with the apocalypse, but he, Eric, and Gerry all manage to avoid their fates.
Relationships: Michael Shelley & Eric Delano
Comments: 25
Kudos: 147





	The Last Assistant

**Author's Note:**

> I made a [post](https://meridiangrimm.tumblr.com/post/187850231943/i-want-the-fic-where-eric-tells-michael-how-to) about Eric sharing how he escaped the Eye, and then decided I needed to write it.
> 
> **Timeline notes:** In MAG 111, Gerry says that his father quit when he was born. Eric mentions in MAG 154 that it took him two years of experimenting to quit. I’ve interpreted this to mean that Eric started trying to leave the Archives as soon as Gerry was born and finally succeeded when Gerry was two. Based on the estimations of Gerry’s age made in various statements, I’ve decided that Eric quits in 1987 (in his early thirties). Trying to pin down Michael’s exact age was incredibly difficult, so I wrote him about five years younger than Eric.
> 
> **EDIT 06-2020:** This fic was written before MAG 167 and thus does not include the other canon archival assistants introduced in that episode.

Michael Shelley leaves the Institute after his shift on Friday and Eric is loitering at the gate. Eric hasn’t been to work for the past week, but when Michael had inquired, Mr. Wright had told him not to worry about it and then asked about a statement. Right now, Eric doesn’t have the expression of a man recently returned from vacation, despite the thick sunglasses that are out of place on a cloudy afternoon. He also doesn’t look sick, although Michael has never seen him with a cane before.

“Eric,” he greets, joining him at the gate. “Where have you been?”

His coworker turns in his direction, but doesn’t smile. “Walk with me?”

“Of course. What’s going on?” Eric holds out an arm, which Michael takes after a moment of confusion. They move away from the Institute and Eric lets Michael lead them both. It’s almost as if – “Did something happen to your eyes? Have you been out for a surgery?” Mr. Wright could’ve just _said_ that Eric was gone for medical reasons and Michael wouldn’t have pried further. There had been no need to change the subject.

“I found a way to slip out of the Eye’s hold,” he announces, pushing all of Michael’s other questions to the side.

“What, seriously?”

That makes Eric grin. “I’ve never been more serious in my life. I quit, Michael. Check with HR if you don’t believe me. I’m never going to set foot in the Magnus Institute again.” Before Michael can ask why he’d been waiting outside the gates, though, Eric explains, “You deserve to have the choice to leave.”

* * *

Eric obviously can’t see Michael’s expression in the silence that follows. Before blinding himself, he’d never fully considered how much he relied on information from visual cues and body language. Michael is still leading them both, though, which is a good sign. He hasn’t blamed Eric for quitting, either, which suggests he’s not too deep in the Eye’s thrall.

Michael huffs a little sigh. “I don’t know if I want to resign. If we both went, we’d be leaving her alone.”

Damn. Michael still believes in the Archivist and her work. Eric had worked with Gertrude Robinson for many years, but not once had he trusted her the way that Michael does or the way that Emma had. Michael _cares_ about her, for Christ’s sake. “What about your own safety?”

“I’ll be very careful.” He says it with a conviction that’s backed up by his experiences until now. Careful, diligent, organized – these are all words that apply to Michael Shelley, true, but he still doesn’t fully grasp the danger he lives with every day.

Eric can’t make him quit, of course, and he can’t make Michael understand that servants of the Fears lead drastically shortened lives. “I know you’re careful. I’d like to tell you just in case, so you have the option.” Eric pauses. “It would make me feel better about leaving you there.” He doesn’t feel guilty about playing on Michael’s desire to please everyone.

As expected, Michael capitulates. “If it puts your mind at ease, then go ahead.”

Eric tells him the cost of freedom from the Eye and prays that he’s done enough for his friend. Eventually, Michael asks him for his address and leads them back to Eric’s new apartment, where the sitter is watching Gerry. As they part, Eric says: “I truly hope that you put yourself first. And if you need someplace to stay afterwards, well, you know where I live now.”

* * *

Michael doesn’t quit. He toils away in the Archives for Ms. Robinson and is now the most senior of her assistants. Michael aches for the camaraderie that Eric and Miss Emma had brought to the workplace, but the new hires aren’t so bad. He likes Tabitha and Bruce well enough, and a few years down the line, after the Archivist informs him about their sudden, unexpected transfer to the Usher Foundation in America, he likes Yasmine and Olivia too. Both girls stay in the Archives until Ms. Robinson takes Olivia with her to the Australian branch in 2001 and returns alone, saying that Olivia had been drawn to their work and had decided to stay. Eight months later, Yasmine goes missing during an out-of-town vacation, leaving Michael the last of Ms. Robinson’s assistants again.

On an ordinary Friday evening in October of 2009, Michael retires to his room after drying the last of his dishes from supper. He’s exhausted from the months of intense research into the Spiral’s ritual, and the descriptions he’d read today in various statements have left his head spinning. Michael had intended to start packing for Russia tonight, but now he’s thinking that it’s going to be an early evening and he’ll start after work tomorrow. He usually only works half-days on Saturday anyways.

Michael boots up his desktop and yawns. He plans to check his email and then look over some of the supernatural forums that he monitors. It will be a quiet evening in, like most of his are. After over two decades in the same job, his patterns are set. As Michael starts to enter his password, however, a spider appears out of the blue and skitters across his keyboard, causing him to flinch back. He has never been afraid of spiders, per se, but after twenty-six years in the Archives, he’s read enough to be wary of them. Better safe than caught in a web and eaten by bull-sized arachnids. While waiting for the spider to leave, Michael’s gaze lands on his phone, which is plugged in on his nightstand. He remembers that he has been meaning to text his cousin for weeks about his work trip. Jeanie had spent ten years in Russia for her job and would undoubtedly have tips about what to pack.

He slowly taps out a message on his flip phone and hits send.

_From Michael [8:08pm]: Hello! I know it’s been a while since we chatted, but I’m taking a short trip to Russia for the Magnus Institute and was wondering if you had suggestions about what to bring_.

_From Jeanie [8:14pm]: Hi Mike, that sounds really exciting. Where in Russia are you going?_

_From Michael [8:15pm]: Zemlya Sannikov_

_From Jeanie [8:15pm]: Lol! Pull the other one._

Michael frowns at that and sends back question marks. She replies almost immediately.

_From Jeanie [8:17pm]: Have you got Narnia on your itinerary too?_

To Michael’s knowledge, Narnia isn’t real, but the Institute does have an armoire in Artefact Storage that sends people into some deep, inaccessible cave with a pool of Darkness at the center. Michael doesn’t think Zemlya Sannikov is anything like the fictional Narnia, though. He googles the name to see if any similarities jump out at him, but the search results confuse him further. The websites that mention Zemlya Sannikov all reference a fictional island from a 1926 novel that was later adapted into a movie. Every result he scrolls through insists that this place, which is out in the Arctic Ocean, is what’s known as a phantom island. It doesn’t exist.

Of course it’s a real place, though. Michael is going there in less than a week. The travel details were approved by Mr. Bouchard a month ago, and Ms. Robinson mentioned on Monday that she already had their tickets. Maybe Michael had gotten the name wrong?

_From Michael [8:27pm]: I must have misheard my boss, sorry. I’ll get back to you about the specifics._

_From Jeanie [8:28pm]: She was probably having you on._

In all his years in the Archives, Michael has never known Ms. Robinson to make a joke. It’s probably just a miscommunication. Michael isn’t fluent in Russian, so it’s possible that the romanized spelling of the name was incorrect. He’ll check with Ms. Robinson tomorrow.

The next morning, though, the Archivist isn’t in her office when Michael brings in her tea. Resolving to come back later, Michael sets her tea on the corner of her desk and his eyes are drawn to a file folder that has documents in Russian peaking out. He flips the folder open, scanning the English pages for the name of the island, and looks through until he finds two plane tickets and two boat tickets. The plane tickets are to Dikson, which Ms. Robinson had told him is the closest they can land to their destination, and then the boat will take them from there to Zemlya Sannikov. Michael feels vindicated for a few happy seconds until he notices something that makes his stomach drop:

Only one set of tickets are listed as a round trip, and they aren’t his. The tickets for Michael Shelley are both marked “one-way”.

Michael quietly has a panic in the staff restrooms as he tries to think of anything that could explain what he’d found. Maybe there was a mistake when the tickets were bought. Maybe there’s an archival conference that Ms. Robinson is sending him to afterwards, like the one he’d attended in Madrid, or maybe she’s planning to get him home by train. Anything other than leaving him there. But no, Michael has read enough about Smirke’s principles of balance, about the Eye and the Spiral and their opposing goals. Michael can connect the dots – sometimes with supernatural insight from the Institute’s patron – and he does not like the conclusions he draws about why he might not be coming home from a potential apocalypse. It’s suddenly very hard for him to breathe.

Mr. Bouchard must be behind it. In all likelihood, he’s the one who purchased the tickets and gave them to Ms. Robinson. It can’t be the Archivist who bought them, because if she’d looked closely, she would have noticed what was printed there. Whatever metaphysical havoc a servant of the Eye could cause a Spiral ritual, Ms. Robinson wouldn’t do that to him. She is too sweet, too kind-hearted. It has to be Mr. Bouchard who planned this.

Michael could refuse to go on the trip. He could claim illness or a family emergency, even though his aunt and uncle emigrated to America years ago and the rest of his extended family are scattered around the globe. His refusal might reflect poorly on Ms. Robinson, though, as Michael is the only person who reports to her now. He doesn’t want to bring any trouble on her from Mr. Bouchard, especially if the head of the Institute is not afraid to send his employees to their doom. Michael could quit. If he removed himself from the equation, Ms. Robinson wouldn’t be responsible for his actions and Michael wouldn’t get shipped to his death.

Michael recalls the price that Eric Delano had paid to quit the Archives, something he has mulled over for years in idle moments, and decides that he can live without his sight, as long as it means he’s alive. After he manages to even out his breathing, he pulls on his coat and leaves the Institute, taking the picture frame from his desk and the rainbow mug he’d kept his pens in. Once he reaches home, Michael digs through his files for the letter Eric had sent a year after leaving the Archives. With more time to search, Eric had found a better apartment for himself and his son, and he had wanted Michael to know that his offer was still open. It has been almost twenty-one years since that letter arrived, and Michael can only hope that Eric still lives there.

When Michael doesn’t recognize the dark-haired young man who answers the door, his heart sinks. The kid, who looks about college age and is dressed in all black, narrows his eyes at Michael suspiciously. “What do you want?”

“I’m sorry, I was looking for Eric Delano. I thought he might still live here.”

If anything, that makes the goth kid even more distrustful. His knuckles go white on the door. “How do you know my father?”

Oh. Eric had talked about his son, but Michael can’t recall the boy’s name. “It’s been a long time, but I used to work with him.”

“At the Magnus Institute? What does the Eye want with him now? It’s been over twenty years.”

“No, no,” Michael says, shaking his head frantically, “I’m not here to – to drag him back in, or whatever it is you’re thinking. Your father escaped the Eye, and now I need to do the same. Eric said – well, I won’t hold him to it if it’s been too long, but I wanted to at least speak to him.”

The man relaxes slightly. “I’ll give him your name and ask if he wants to meet you. There have been plenty of creeps from that world trying to contact my dad over the years, and most of them weren’t looking to chat, you feel?”

“I understand.” Michael gives his name to Eric’s son and waits on the doorstep. After a few minutes, the man returns to let Michael inside and introduces himself as Gerry Delano.

Eric joins them in the hallway with a smile and ushers them both back to the kitchen for breakfast (which makes sense, since Michael is dropping by at 9am on a Saturday). “Michael Shelley. I confess, after all this time, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Hopefully it’s a pleasant surprise,” Michael says with a laugh that doesn’t hide the fact that he’s still hovering on the edge of panic. “I was wondering whether your offer still stands to help me if I quit. Just until I adjust, that is. I don’t have any family in the UK, and I don’t think I could get to any of them before I faced, ah, repercussions from the Eye.”

“You’re welcome to stay here with us for as long as you like.”

It’s the best answer Michael could have hoped for, but he needs to be sure. “Are you certain?” He glances over at Gerry. “Do you need to discuss it with your son, or anyone else who lives here? I can contribute to groceries and rent.”

Eric takes a seat at the table and gestures to the chair across from him. “We can work that out later. For now, let’s have breakfast and figure out what you need from your apartment before you officially resign.”

* * *

After twenty-six long years in the Archives, Michael Shelley quits the Magnus Institute. Personally, Eric has no doubt that Gertrude will find another way to foil the Spiral, but Michael spends the days after his self-inflicted surgery wracked with guilt. In his haste to escape the Institute, the reason _why_ he’d been slotted for death had been pushed to the side. One day, he asks Eric if it was selfish of him to run away when his sacrifice might have saved the world. Eric replies that Gertrude is a resourceful woman and will have to make do with an artefact of the Eye rather than one of its servants. She can sort it out with Beholding later.

A few days after the Archivist was scheduled to return home from Zemlya Sannikov, Gerry lurks outside the Institute against Eric’s protests and reports that she’d made it back to London in one piece. Michael is audibly relieved. Eric decides to hold off on pointing out that it was Gertrude and not the head of the Institute (which, Elias Bouchard, _really?_) who had intended for Michael to die. He has plenty of time while Michael recovers to nudge the man towards that idea.

For now, though, they celebrate surviving another would-be apocalypse, and Eric and Gerry help Michael settle into their lives.

**Author's Note:**

> **mag 160:** the rituals would have failed no matter what  
**me, furious on Michael Shelley's behalf:** this boy will get a happy ending if I have to write it myself
> 
> As always, comments are much appreciated!!
> 
> Find me on my [tumblr](http://meridiangrimm.tumblr.com/) if you want to talk about The Magnus Archives.


End file.
